Union Station park, 1950

The park in front of Lexington’s Union Station in April 1950. The terminal fronted Main Street, just west of Walnut Street, which has been renamed Martin Luther King Boulevard. It opened in 1907, and the last passenger train departed from the station on May 9, 1957. In March 1960, the building was demolished. The current building at the site houses the Lexington Police Department, the Fayette County clerk’s office and the downtown’s busiest parking garage, the Annex Garage. Click here to see more images from our archives of Union Station. In this image to the left is the original Wolf Wile department store, which moved to a more modern building on Main Street later that year, next to Quality Street, where Gray Construction Co. now has its offices. Across Main Street toward the middle of the image is the Strand Theater, which opened in 1915 and closed in 1974. The movie showing at the time this photo was taken was “Feudin’ Rhythm,” starring Eddy Arnold and Gloria Henry. And down the left is the Baynham Shoe Co., a popular shoe store that operated for more then 50 years before closing in the 1970s. Click on the image for a closer look. Herald-Leader Archive Photo